en.Wedoany.com Reported - The Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) of the Indian government has approved a financial allocation of 1.25 trillion rupees (approximately $13 billion) for the second phase of the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM 2.0). The proposal has now been submitted to the Union Cabinet for deliberation.
Compared to the allocation of 760 billion rupees (approximately $8 billion) in the first phase, the budget scale of ISM 2.0 has significantly expanded. The program covers the entire semiconductor industry chain, including chip design, wafer fabrication, and packaging and testing, with a focus on providing financial and non-financial policy incentives to compound semiconductor companies and upstream raw material manufacturers required for chip manufacturing and packaging.
Supporting core infrastructure is advancing in tandem. India plans to establish the "Silicon and Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Research and Training Center (SAMARTH)" at the Indian Institute of Technology in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, with a joint investment of $19.9 million from the government and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. The center will focus on semiconductor research, professional talent cultivation, and industry-academia collaboration, aiming to promote the self-sufficiency of the domestic chip industry chain and reduce dependence on overseas supply chains.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated that the country's semiconductor industry layout covers the entire chain of design, equipment, and logistics, with the core goal not being simply to build chip factories, but to construct a complete industrial ecosystem. As domestic production capacity expands, it will drive the development of upstream material and component local supporting industries, activating domestic manufacturing opportunities.
Several achievements have been made since the ISM 1.0 phase. The Indian government has approved 12 semiconductor manufacturing projects with a total investment of approximately $17.3 billion, including 1 wafer fab, 2 compound semiconductor factories, and 9 packaging and testing plants. Among them, two key projects in Gujarat have received a special investment of $417 million from the Union Cabinet.
The chip design field is also progressing steadily. Under India's Design Linked Incentive scheme, 24 chip design projects have received support, 105 companies have been authorized to use high-end chip design tools, and a total of 23 chips have been taped out across various industrial bases.
Upstream and downstream supporting facilities of the semiconductor industry chain are also being developed in tandem. Industrial gas company INOX Air Products not only provides gas services for Micron's $2.75 billion chip factory in Gujarat but has also invested $58 million to build an electronic specialty gas center locally to support subsequent chip projects in the region. Additionally, the semiconductor factory under construction by Tata Electronics is expected to start trial chip production this December.
